Baseball 1968 Archive

Dog Days

The Sunday game between Ames and Cedar Rapids ended in spectacular fashion, on a triple play started by Donn Clendenon that allowed the Little Cyclones to snap a 4-game skid. That was exciting! It’s an open secret that Ames is my favorite club, but aside from a few highlights such as the one mentioned, August has been a bad month. The team has stumbled along at 12-13, which has allowed the red-hot Iowa City Regals (17-7 this month) to slip ahead of them. It is starting to shape up as a good penant race, with just 4 games separating the top four clubs.

In the race for the batting title, Sioux City’s Pete Rose (.327) has nudged ahead of Des Moines’ Roy White (.326), and three others are still in the hunt: Matty Alou (.320), Willie Mays (.317), and Carl Yastrzemski (.316). The other triple crown categories are dominated by Dubuque’s Frank Howard, whose 37 homers and 100 RBI are eight and sixteen (respectively) ahead of his closest challengers.

This could be a year in which a pitcher, Bob Gibson, wins the MVP award. The Davenport ace is 21-6 with a 2.13 ERA. But there is still a month of baseball to play, and even among pitchers Gibby has some strong competition. Notably, Cedar Rapids’ Dean Chance has a fine 15-7 mark and leads the league in ERA (2.07) and shutouts (4).

Here is a link to the Strat-O-Matic league file after 20 weeks of play, and the current standings. The Regals (9-1) have caught fire and risen to 3rd place, just 3 1/2 games behind the Falcons (4-6 lately). Dubuque and Des Moines are the coldest clubs, both 3-7 over the last ten.